Alfred Nichols

[Arun Vajpey]

The real tragedy is that if there weren't enough women willing to go into a boat, they should have let men that were willing to go to enter a boat.

Very true. To a large extent Murdoch did exactly that with the starboard side lifeboats but as we all know, it did not happen on the port side. But as I have said in another thread, it is questionable whether "they" was represented by only Lightoller; I would have thought Captain Smith and Wilde would have had at least some input in the decisions about who was allowed into a port side lifeboat and who was not. Wilde was around in a supervisory capacity during the loading of 3 out of 4 port side aft lifeboats.

Stewardess Katie Gold gave an interview which appeared in many newspapers.

'When the Titanic struck the berg,', said Mrs. Gold,'I was in my room reading. It was a quarter to 12. ... Twenty minutes after, I heard Captain Smith come down to the room.' of Mr. Bruce Ismay — managing director of the company — which was only a few feet away from mine. I heard the captain say to Mr. Ismay, 'We had better get the boats out.'

It says so on her ET bio but is this statement believable? Although the class that she served on board the Titanic is not mentioned but Katie Gold was a stewardess and would her cabin be located within eavesdropping distance of the White Star Chairman's B-deck suite?

Katie Gold herself does not appear to have been all that reliable a person according to her bio. She left her British husband to go to the sea but there is apparently no record of a divorce; after the disaster she settled in America and remarried a local man but there is suspicion that she (as well as her second husband) was committing bigamy by doing so.

But what of steerage passengers?

Nichols opening an E deck gangway door would presumably have created all sorts of issues that I have previously mentioned.

As far as can be discerned, Nichols did not open the E-deck gangway door; but as Thomas Krom points out, it is probable that he and his crew opened the D-deck door and were unable to close it properly afterwards. I agree that it would have had issues for the passengers (mostly Third Class) berthed in the lower decks as well as a lot of the crew but given the circumstances, Lightoller, Nichols etc probably did not realize how much time they had left. After the first hour, the rate of dip of the bow slowed significantly and it is possible (I stress that this is just a conjecture) that Lightoller thought that the Titanic would remain afloat for longer than it actually did. Therefore if he gave that gangway door order as he claimed and Nichols attempted to carry it out, they might have considered it to be a practical, if rather risky, operation to load people though that doorway. With hindsight and detailed analysis, we now know that it was not.

 

[George Jacub]

The stewardess room is across from the bath in centre of the plan, and kitty corner to Ismay'in B-56. The Baxters were in B-58.

 

[Julian Atkins]

Let us hope that the issue of Nichols and opening an E deck gangway door can get resolved.

We ought to be able to do this.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Let us hope that the issue of Nichols and opening an E deck gangway door can get resolved.

We ought to be able to do this.

If you are asking did Nichols open any gangway door, then the answer is that there is no proof that he did.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

If you are asking did Nichols open any gangway door, then the answer is that there is no proof that he did.

That's what I thought for a long time and to some extent still do. But some members have mentioned the open D-deck Gangway door on the port side on the wreck as well as the condition of the grill inside. There has been a suggestion that this is conducive with deliberate human operation of the mechanism and not a blow-out during the break-up or impact of the bow section with the ocean floor. Perhaps I am reading it wrong or not understood it clearly, and would be grateful if you could explain it Sam.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

I am not the one to speak about the condition of the door on the wreck, and I will not guess. But as far as gangway doors are concerned, there is evidence that several boats were told when being lowered to hang around the ship for loading from the doors.

Senator FLETCHER. Suppose the boat carries 65 people; how many would you feel it safe to put into the boat before lowering it?
Mr. PITMAN. That would depend a lot on the condition of the boat, whether it was an old boat or a new boat.
Senator FLETCHER. Well, I am taking conditions as they were there that night and those people.
Mr. PITMAN. I think 40 would be a very safe load. I do not think boats are ever intended to be filled from the rail.
Senator FLETCHER. How did you calculate to fill the boat?
Mr. PITMAN. It was according to the number of people to go in.
Senator FLETCHER. How did you expect to fill them?
Mr. PITMAN. With a side ladder.
Senator BURTON. That is, let them down in the water and fill them with a side ladder?
Mr. PITMAN. Yes, sir.
Senator FLETCHER. From deck E?
Mr. PITMAN. No; it would not be E. It would be about D or C; C deck, I should say.
Senator FLETCHER. It is intended and expected, then, to fill the boats by first lowering the boat and then letting the people down on side ladders?
Mr. PITMAN. Yes, sir.
Senator FLETCHER. Or through doors?
Mr. PITMAN. Yes.
Senator FLETCHER. Why was not that course pursued in this instance?
Mr. PITMAN. Well, it was a new ship, and everything new, of course. It takes a certain amount of risk. That was a much quicker way, too.
Senator FLETCHER. Which is the much quicker way?
Mr. PITMAN. The way we did it.

And we know Hogg was told to get a Jacobs ladder, which he did.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

The members that I alluded to in my previous post told me about them privately, one in a PM conversation and the other by E-mail. I feel that at present I am not at liberty to divulge their identities for those reasons but the first one may do so himself anyway. The other prefers to stay off open discussions.

I'll cut and paste what they said about the open D-deck gangway door on the wreck.

Member A:

But the gate was never locked or closed. I repeat again, the gate of the open forward port side gangway door is the only gate that is open. If they indeed opened it, they didn't close the sliding gate. The pictures I posted of the other closed sliding gates was to show it looked in the closed position, yet the gates of only one of them is open which just happens to belong to the only open gangway door.
Then why aren't the three other gangway doors, which were identical, open as well while exposed to the same elements? And why is this exact gangway door the only one where the lock of the gates are open from and are in the open position? I believe the gate and the door were opened by hand, and in their haste they didn't lock the door properly and didn't close the gate at all.

Member B

As I have said previously, anyone claiming nobody was sent below to open the gangway doors has to explain how one of the D-Deck gangway doors on the port side is open on the wreck, and how the inner grille, which had to be raised to the ceiling and put in a stowed position to open the outer shell door, is in the lifted and stowed position on the wreck today, rather than remaining closed, or having been blasted out the side of the ship. Clearly, it was opened prior to the sinking, whether by Nichols and the men who went below with him, or by others. Interestingly, with a port list, it would have been extremely difficult to reclose the shell door against gravity, once it was opened

I did not know about there being an inner grill to those gangway doors till last week, but if so, both the above gentlemen have a point. I am sitting on the fence with the state of that door itself but I sometimes feel that Nichols and his men might have tried opening it before deciding that it was too risky.

 

[Thomas Krom]

I am not the one to speak about the condition of the door on the wreck, and I will not guess.

Allow me to explain it to you.

The starboard side gangway doors on the Titanic as photographed on the 11th of April 1912 by the Odell family from the tender PS Ireland. Both remain in this closed position to this very day.


As you know, there were five gangway doors on D-deck, one on the starboard side of the third class open space (measuring 4 feet and 6 inches in width and 6 feet and half an inch in height) and four which served as the boarding entrances for first class (2 on each side, measuring 4 feet and 6 inches in width and 6 feet in height).

The open gangway door back in the 80s

At the wreck three of these first class boarding entrance doors (both gangway doors on the starboard side and the aft one on the port side), one was open upon the recovery of the wreck (this being the forward port side gangway door). One might think:
"But it couldn't have been the forces of the ship that damaged the gangway door as she made or crashed her way down at the bottom"



However, there is one big piece of evidence against this claim. In 2001 James Cameron sent down two ROV's, named Jake and Elwood after the Blues Brothers, and then the discovery was made for the first time that in front of these gangway doors there was a wrought iron folding gate instead of two wooden double doors as believed before.

One of the starboard side wrought iron gates in the closed position, letting light through for the first time in years.




During the voyage these gates were closed. There are three closed gates, once again belonging to both gangway doors on the starboard side and the aft one on the port side while the gate belonging to the same open gangway door is folded and open. In my opinion, this is evidence human hands were involved in the opening this gangway door. Not to mention that this exact gangway door is located exactly under lifeboat number 6.


I hope this explains a bit.


Kind regards,


Thomas


PS While I have more footage on the open gangway door, I feel like it is quite risky to upload a picture of it here.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Thanks Thomas. So if I understand it, one of the two doors on the port side of D deck forward, under where boat 6 would be, is open and the gate is raised suggesting that this was done by crewmembers.

 

[Thomas Krom]

Thanks Thomas. So if I understand it, one of the two doors on the port side of D deck forward, under where boat 6 would be, is open and the gate is raised suggesting that this was done by crewmembers.
View attachment 111319

Exactly Sam, exactly that one.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

With the evidence of that door seen on wreck, and its location, plus the claim made by Lightoller, I would have to say that the probability is in favor that it was Nichols who went down with some others and got that door unlocked. If I had to guess, it happened around the time that No. 4 was lowered down to A deck for loading there, before Nichols went to the starboard side to work on getting those forward boats out.

 

[Thomas Krom]

but the first one may do so himself anyway.

Member A:

Member A will step forward, in this matter the quote was written by me earlier this month.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

With the evidence of that door seen on wreck, and its location, plus the claim made by Lightoller, I would have to say that the probability is in favor that it was Nichols who went down with some others and got that door unlocked.

It certainly sounds that way, especially going by Lightoller's testimony on Day 1 of the US Inquiry.

Senator SMITH.
How do you account for your inability to get hold of more than nine seamen to man those lifeboats on the port side?

Mr. LIGHTOLLER.
Earlier, and before I realized that there was any danger, I told off the boatswain to take some men - I didn't say how many, leaving the man to use his own judgment, to go down below and open the gangway doors in order that some boats could come alongside and be filled to their utmost capacity. He complied with the order, and, so far as I know, went down below, and I did not see him afterwards. That took away a number of men, and we detailed two men for each boat and two men for lowering down.

If I had to guess, it happened around the time that No. 4 was lowered down to A deck for loading there, before Nichols went to the starboard side to work on getting those forward boats out.

Although no specific time is mentioned (AFAIK) about when Lightoller lowered Lifeboat #4 to the A-deck, he did admit that it was the first boat he lowered.

Mr. LIGHTOLLER.
Because the boats were there. I might say that previous to putting this Berthon boat out we had lowered a boat from A deck one deck down below. That was through my fault. It was the first boat I had lowered. I was intending to put the passengers in from A deck. On lowering it down I found the windows were closed. So I sent some one down to open the windows and carried on with the other boats, but decided it was not worth while lowering them down, that I could manage just as well from the boat deck. When I came forward from the other boats I loaded that boat from A deck by getting the women out through the windows. My idea in filling the boats there was because there was a wire hawser running along the side of the ship for coaling purposes, and it was handy to tie the boat in to, to hold it so that nobody could drop between the side of the boat and the ship.

Based on that, I worked out that it must have been between 12:40am and 12:45am when he did that. He then said that he sent some men to unlock those windows and carried on with loading other lifeboats. In OASOG the authors conjecture that Lightoller then went to Lifeboat #6 and started work on it and was thus engaged when he gave Nichols the order to take some men and go below to open the gangway doors.

IMO, more than anything else that strongly suggests that Lightoller did give the gangway door order. He had admitted that lowering Lifeboat #4 to the A-deck was his own fault and having done that, it is highly unlikely that on Day 1 of what was to be a prolonged investigation on both sides of the Atlantic, Lightoller would have invented the gangway door order in order to cover-up for partially filled lifeboats - like Julian considered.

 

[Julian Atkins]

Fascinating!

I had particularly noticed Thomas Krom's much earlier post about a gangway door on D deck being open on the wreck site, that is an undisputed fact, but perhaps until now overlooked?

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Yes, it looks like it was overlooked by most of us until Thomas Krom posted those pictures.

While I have more footage on the open gangway door, I feel like it is quite risky to upload a picture of it here.

Why risky, Thomas? Are you worried about copyright infringements or something? IMO, a lot of people should find those pictures very interesting.